Hello and welcome to our March bulletin. Bringing you our usual mix of news, publications, project updates and much much more.
News: Changes within SCPHRP from 1st July 2018
Some of you may be aware that the SCPHRP core MRC and CSO funding ceases in its present form at the end of June 2018. We are delighted to formally announce that SCPHRP will continue to function as a Research Centre from 1st July 2018, within the School of Health in Social Sciences. Dr Ruth Jepson will be taking over as Director, with Dr John McAteer as Deputy Director. Professor John Frank will step down from his Director role within SCPHRP to focus upon other projects, largely in Global Health Research, and his new role as Director of Knowledge Exchange and Research Impact within the Usher Institute. We will continue to develop research activity in collaboration with our existing academic and non-academic partners. We are looking forward to this new chapter and the exciting opportunities that it will bring!
Goodbye Jenny
Congratulations to Jenny Ordoñez Betancourth who has gone home to Colombia to have her baby. We wish her and her new family all the best from everyone at SCPHRP.
Our Outdoors
Come and see SCPHRP at Summerhall this Easter as we take part in the 30th Edinburgh International Science Festival (EISF). We are running a drop-in event as part of the festival’s Experimentarium about how the outdoor environments we spend time in can impact our health. Come along and take part in hand’s on and interactive activities suitable for all ages.
Summerhall (Mainhall) 9th – 13th April @ 11am-4pm
Paths for All: Building a Programme Theory
On Tuesday 13th March our PhD student, Mary Allison, worked with Paths for All staff to begin building a programme theory for the Step Count Challenge. In addition to it providing 2 hours worth of great data, it was also 2 hours of a ‘standing workshop’. Walking the talk on healthy research and evaluation practice!
Cost of the School Day
SCPHRP’s Greig Inglis is currently working with colleagues from Health Scotland to conduct an evaluability assessment of the Cost of the School Day project. This project is being delivered by Child Poverty Action Group, and involves children, parents and school staff in identifying cost barriers to fully participating and in taking action to remove them.
Please contact Greig (greig.inglis@ed.ac.uk) for more information about the evaluability assessment. More information about the Cost of the School Day can be found here: http://www.cpag.org.uk/cost-school-day
Research the Headlines
SCPHRP’s Louise Marryat was one of twenty Early Career Researchers from across the UK and beyond who were invited to attend an event to discuss Mental health policy and social science in Edinburgh on Thursday 23rd March.
The day was funded by a British Academy Rising Star Award receivedby the Usher Institute’s own Dr. Martyn Pickersgill. The morning session comprised some great discussions with Dr. Sinead Rhodes (University of Edinburgh) and Chris O’Sullivan (Mental Health Foundation) around public engagement and mental health, including how popular portrayals of mental health, such as Stacy’s postpartum psychosis storyline in EastEnders, which was developed with advice from experts, can positively influence public perceptions of mental health, as well as how to get involved in writing blogs such as ‘research the headlines’ https://researchtheheadlines.org/.
Public Health Research Programme Rapid Funding Scheme
Application dates: 01 March 2018 to 31 December 2018
The Rapid Funding Scheme (RFS) offers researchers the opportunity to apply for funds to conduct rapid baseline data collection, as well as other feasibility work, prior to intervention implementation, for time-limited opportunities such as a natural experiment or similar evaluations of a new public health intervention. Read more…
20 MPH
Have you seen a 20mph sign in your town, village or city? What did you think? Did it prompt you to drive more slowly? These are exactly the questions that a new research project is trying to assess. In this blog, G.F.Nightingale, P. Kelly, and the “Is twenty plenty?” research team discuss the major study they have embarked on to evaluate the effects of the 20mph speed limit implementations in Edinburgh and Belfast.
Rethinking Healthy Spaces: Evidence, Evaluation and Design
Kathleen Morrison attended a workshop at the University of Bristol earlier this month which was led by 
a diverse range of academics from the GW4 Alliance which is a collaboration between the University of Bath, the University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter.
The workshop brought together perspectives from different subject areas in an attempt to develop a better understanding of how spaces are designed to be healthy, and how collaborative approaches can enhance spatial design for health. The workshop explored the role of evidence and how we can look to build interdisciplinary research networks on the topic.
And finally…
If you’d like to keep up to date with our news, projects, videos, events and publications join our mailing list.In the meantime, it’s bye from all of us at SCPHRP, until next time.
